Wednesday, January 25, 2012

wool stone rug

a need: the sewing room is slowly taking shape in what was once both my daughters' bedroom. It has light carpeting with a big make-up stain right smack in the middle that needed a rug to cover it.

a desire: I've been drawn to the earthiness of stones lately -- collecting and writing on them mostly, but have also been wanting to stitch some, inspired greatly by the magic diaries class.

Well, the need for a rug somehow melded with the desire to sew some stones. While going through some of my home-felted wools, I noticed their colors were very stonelike. Then I remembered the felted pebble rug here and searched for a tutorial but really didn't come up with what I was envisioning. There's this one using knitted balls but I already have the beekeeper quilt going and one long-term knitting project is enough for now. Plus I wanted to use the stone-colored wool cloth I already had.

The first three stones are stitched & gathered and lightly stuffed with wool. I'm thinking a lightweight base with corduroy as a heavier backing, but some details are undecided. Even though it's my favorite, I'm not sure wool is the best filler.

24 comments:

helen salo
said...

I love these stones and your fabric for them! The only thing with corduroy is , if you are hand sewing, it is sometimes hard to stitch through and ones hand gets tired easier. But I do believe you would definateely want a "non skid" type cloth for the backing, wool maybe too slippery???I like the wool batting, see nothing wrong with that. This is going to be great!

Beautiful rugs and your wools would look wonderful as stones. Are you felting before or after you create the stones, or not at all? If you felt the stones with the wool stuffing, I think you would have a wonderful, cozy rug - like the felted slippers feel.

Helen, thank you! I'm so glad you brought that up about the corduroy being heavy, you're right. I think the rug will always be used in a low-traffic area over carpeting so maybe a wool backing would work. Things to think about...

Thank you, Lyn. I'm thinking it'll feel really good on bare feet! It'll have to have a low-profile so it won't get kicked around. I'm a little concerned about the dogs though, you just know they're going to want to lay on it and they do all that scratching and going around in a circle before they plop down!

Jeannie, this wool is already felted so I'll just stuff them and leave it at that, I guess. I went on one of those wool kicks way back and bought a bunch of wool skirts, etc. at goodwill and then felted it all. Good thing I did it then because my newer washing machine doesn't have an agitator like the old one and it won't felt a darn thing!

What are you stuffing the "stones" with?Real cotton? If so, where did you find it. I am searching for a good source of cotton for stuffing....I am with Jude...I thought your stones were real!: )BTW cool idea!<3

i love your stones! this is going to be such a cool rug. my favorite pincushion is a felted "stone", it's stuffed w/scrap felt, making it very solid. i don't know if it would work w/wool that's already felted? also, i've got a front load machine & found that i can felt things by throwing in an old shoe & making sure the water goes from hot to cold.

Thanks, Cindy -- that's good to know about the shoe, too. Very frustrating to not be able to felt anymore, I'll have to try that! I've tried the hot to cold but got poor results. Been doing it by hand, just small pieces though.

Lovely! I hope you've finished it by now! I'm planning a "forest floor" crocheted rug, but may have to try this idea for some stones mixed in. The crochet will be too texturey to represent smooth stones, I think. My mother has a huge collection of used woolens. Thank you for posting this.

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